End of the line for Vine

Twitter is to discontinue Vine, its sharing app for short-form video clips.

The service, founded in June 2012 and acquired by Twitter just four months later, allowed users to publish their own six-second, looping videos through Vine’s social network.

Originally popular with creative videomakers, the app quickly became a source for comical video clips which would often go viral.

Only as recently as June 2016, the company suggested that the format could be extended to videos as long as 140 seconds. However, while Twitter has given no reason for the closure decision, it’s believed that making money from the service was proving difficult, despite its popularity.

While the app is to be discontinued in the coming months, the website will remain online and accessible to its estimated 200 million active users.

As well as creative filmmakers, Vine boasts many celebrity users, with Justin Bieber, Harry Styles, Josh Peck, Shawn Mendes and Ariana Grande each boasting over a million followers. One of the most famous clips was a series entitled ’Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal’. When its creator Ryan McHenry died, the actor posted his own video tribute.

A company statement read: “We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made.”